It’s easy to get carried away with achieving a perfect muscular physique via working out. But it’s a double-edged sword because your evaluation of success rises and falls with the current status of your body, which can fluctuate quite a bit over time (due to illness, injury, weather, seasons, natural bodily changes, etc).

If you’re making money from your physique (e.g., via modeling or competitions), then focusing so much on your body makes sense. Maybe if you’re single and looking to attract partners, it could make some sense. If you happen to have lots of free time…perhaps it’s still worth targeting.

If none of these conditions exist in your life–and maybe even if they do–it seems to make more sense to focus on physical health, strength & energy than how your body looks.

But doesn’t physical health & energy fluctuate too, even if one works out on a regular basis?

Ha, yes, it’s true.

This brings us to my “secret trick”:

Use whatever positive attribute you can point to as being a direct result of regular exercise to help keep you motivated and continuing to work out.

In practice, even though I usually use my good physical health, strength & energy as an incentive to keep working out, I’ve been known to take visible physique gains into account too if it motivates me to keep exercising–i.e., I use anything I believe is a result of working out to keep me exercising.

Ultimately, I believe that working out is positive in so many ways in my life–especially as I get older–that I’ll do whatever it takes to get me to the gym or exercising at home or on the road.

I still think trying to achieve a “perfect body” doesn’t make sense for most people and can be a source of frustration and demotivating. However, if you happen to notice some increased muscular tone in your back or legs or wherever, might as well throw this observation into your “motivation pot” with any other ingredients you come across (like feeling good!) to keep exercise an active part of your life…:-).

While I’ve done some of that, an affiliation I find more unique, interesting, and yet still fitness-related, is my affiliation with Underwear Sellers. I think cool and sexy underwear is a great reward for keeping yourself in shape! Such underwear can also serve as an excellent goal or motivation for getting into shape.

In any case, I’ve got two new affiliations with Underwear sellers that I think are damn great:

Please check them out and buy yourself (or someone you know) some nice new underwear!

People in your social media streams may not always appreciate it when you share your #selfies, #gymselfies, or #underwearselfies with them. But here, we not only welcome it, we encourage it!

In addition to the selfie photo itself, we’d love if you would provide an indication of your age and the fitness program you follow. That way we can encourage and help each other in our fitness programs, especially when we find people in similar age groups or following similar programs.